Optimizing the Distribution of Software Services in Infrastructure Clouds

Abstract

In the public perception, cloud computing is frequently associated with almost unlimited elasticity and scalability of computing capacity. However, Infrastructure as a Service in the form of virtual machines provides limited supplies of virtual resources, due to restrictions of the underlying physical hardware. At the same time, the execution of Software as a Service instances leads to a specific demand for these resources. Based on this observation, I introduce the Software Service Distribution Problem, i.e., the challenge of (cost-)efficiently distributing the execution of software service instances across available cloud infrastructure providers and virtual machine types under resource constraints. I outline my research approach, which aims at the development of optimization algorithms in the context of an integrated Software Service Distribution Broker, and report the progress made to date.